As I explained in detail in this post, I had a serious bicycle accident on April 21 while riding in a campground near Augusta, Georgia. It's been a month since I wrote that post and five weeks since my accident, so I wanted to write an update on how I've been doing since then.

Most importantly, the folks at the ER misread my jaw CT scan. They told me that I had no jaw fractures, and I initially believed them. When I saw my primary-care doctor, she agreed that since my bite was still seriously out of whack, I needed to see an oral surgeon ASAP and referred me. By the time I could get in, it had been 2.5 weeks since the accident, not an ideal situation. Had I not been misdiagnosed initially, I would have been able to get this taken care of much sooner, which is highly recommended in the case of jaw fractures.

And yes, my jaw is indeed fractured. The oral surgeon took panoramic 3D x-rays and confirmed three jaw fractures: bilateral condyle fractures and a parasymphyseal fracture on the left of the centerline of my lower mandible. The condyle fractures were causing the severe malocclusion of my bite (only two teeth meeting on the left, none on the right) and open bite (like a severe overbite).

These fractures also accounted for my initial feeling that I'd dislodged a lot of my rear molars, as it caused them to move out of place. Thankfully, I did not actually lose any teeth!

​The parasymphyseal fracture was causing numbness and tingling on the left side of my lower lip and chin due to Mental nerve damage, which I hope is temporary. It has already come back part way, a good sign.

While doing research on jaw fractures, I learned that the mandible (lower jaw) is the tenth most often fractured bone in the human body. It is commonly broken in sports injuries, like mine, car accidents, and from blows to the face in fights. I found several blogs from other cyclists who'd suffered jaw fractures, which helped me feel not so alone plus provided much information on surgery and recovery.

My oral surgeon recommended closed fixation and jaw wiring. I was relieved, as one of the options had been open fixation, which involves cutting into the skin on both sides of the Condyle area and making the repairs from the outside. That would leave even more scars on my face, and the healing process would be longer. With closed reduction, no incisions are made. Rather, the surgeon physically manipulates the jaw back into place, then wires it shut so bone healing can begin and the muscles of the face can re-adapt to the correct position. This would be done under sedation so I would not feel any pain (thank the gods!)

My surgery was scheduled for 3.5 weeks after the accident. This complicated matters a bit as my facial muscles had already tightened up and were pulling my mandible rearward quite a bit, making the surgeon's job more difficult. Fortunately, with some effort, my surgeon was able to massage and work the muscles to manipulate my mandible back in place. Although no actual fixation of the parasymphyseal fracture was performed, he could also feel it come back into alignment. Yes!

When I woke up from the surgery, my surgeon informed me that he was very pleased with how things had gone. He told me that he was able to get my teeth aligned on both sides before wiring the jaw shut, so I should have a good result. He reiterated that I will probably need to have orthodontia (i.e., braces) to complete the work. Even so, I was very relieved!

I've been wired now for just over a week and will get the wires cut exactly two weeks post-surgery. They will be replaced with tight elastics and gradually changed to looser elastics. At some point, the arch bars that hold the wires and elastics will be removed. I guess at that point I'll know for sure if I'll have to have braces on my teeth. It would be wonderful not to need them, especially given our nomadic lifestyle. Braces obviously require a longer commitment and frequent visits that would likely keep us stuck in one spot for much longer than we prefer. But I'll do what it takes to ensure full healing and correction of this injury.

Post-surgery, my entire lower face was very swollen, and I was in a lot of pain, mostly from the screws in my jaw that hold the arch bars, top and bottom, into place. I started out alternating Norco (hydrocodone with tylenol) with ibuprofen every three hours, Over the days, the swelling continues to decrease, and the pain has lessened to "discomfort". I'm only taking one Norco daily, right before bed, and the rest of the time alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen, stretching the time between doses a bit more each day.

Since I'm wired, I'm on a liquid diet, and Barry has been great about making all my smoothies, soups, and milkshakes in a blender. Together we've come up with some healthy and delicious concoctions. We're using whey protein powder, Greek yogurt, peanut butter, fruit, and veggies to ensure I keep up my health and weight while on this restricted diet. Once I go to elastics, I'll be able to start eating soft foods again and gradually add more and more foods to my daily menus. Joy!

From other blogs I've read, the last foods I'll be able to add are hard or chewy foods such as apples, nuts, pizza, and other chewy breads or meats. Pizza is going to be the hardest for me; we always crave what we can't have most of all.

I am not allowed any alcohol while wired. That makes sense since I'm still taking NSAIDs and Tylenol, and the combination is not good with alcohol under any circumstances. I guess the other reason is to avoid any clouding of judgment that might lead to me making a bad decision, like deciding to cut all my wires! I haven't had any desire for alcohol anyway; perhaps that is part of the body's healing process? I expect I'll enjoy the first glass of wine, though!

Not for the faint of heart, I'll post a few photos taken pre- and post-surgery. Because of the screws and wires in my mouth, I can't smile at all now, and that is frustrating for me -- and for Barry, who misses my smiling face!

Day after the accident - scary!

Two weeks after accident: bruises healing but jaw still uncorrected

One week after surgery: Most of my wires are hidden, but they're in there!

Week after accident -- all the swelling/blood had moved by gravity to my neck. This did not hurt but looked horrific!

Morning after jaw-wiring surgery

One week after surgery, swelling is better, but I can't smile due to the hardware in my mouth.

​Since we won't be traveling for awhile as I continue to go to medical appointments and concentrate on healing, posts to this blog will be pretty infrequent for awhile. Hope you'll stick with us as we do plan to travel again just as soon we can!

We had such a relaxing time visiting this laid-back fishing village on Mexico's Yucatan coast, and it was a nice break from tourists and traffic, as we visited in what is considered the off-season. You sure don't see sights like this in busy Playa del Carmen, where we were living in Centro at the time. I guess you could say there was traffic, just not the usual type!

Even the zocalo (town square) was sparsely populated when we visited.

Here is the Catholic church on the zocalo. You can see it on the right in the photo above.

Restaurants don't open early for breakfast in town (8:30 or 9 am is the norm!), and on our last morning, our favorite spot for breakfast wasn't open at all on Tuesdays, so we tried the Restaurant El Lobo. It wasn't open when we first went by, so we walked on the beach for a bit, then returned. We were the only ones there, and the owner had to run to the grocery store to get some yogurt for our breakfast. Yes, this is small-town Mexico! He was very friendly, though, and the breakfast was tasty.

You can see from the street above that it has rained overnight. However, the clouds were breaking up over the beach, promising a beautiful day ahead.

This old leaning tower may have been an early, abandoned lighthouse. The current white lighthouse sits, tall and straight, close by.

At this hour, we had the beach all to ourselves, other than these two cute beach dogs. I tried to make friends, but they were very shy. The puppy was adorable, but just too scared to come over to be pet.

Here's the beach side of the restaurant where we ate all three of our seafood dinners. It gets the best reviews on Tripadvisor, so we just kept coming back; why mess with a good thing?

We had our backpacks with us as we were going straight to the bus terminal after breakfast. A good reason to pack light!

After breakfast, it was time to buy our bus tickets back to Merida (where we'd then catch a first-class ADO bus back to Playa). Although this is a second-class bus line, it is still very nice (better than any bus we took in Belize!) The ADO bus does not come to Celestún.

Being a second-class bus, the Oriente has a few more stops than an ADO bus. One of the towns we stopped in featured this gorgeous egg-yolk yellow church. I don't recall which town now, but we had to get a couple of photos of this beauty.

Also on our return trip, it was getting close to December 12, the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, so we saw many of the faithful pilgrims making their trips to distant cities for the celebration. This is a big deal in Mexico, and we'd experienced it when visiting Mexico from Belize in 2012 so knew what it was all about this time around!

We set aside our second full day in Celestún for the much-touted flamingo tour. This is what brings most tourists and locals alike to Celestún.

Naturally, we decided to walk into town from our guest house rather than take a taxi. It was a nice walk of a couple of miles, as the river and dock are past the town center.

I inadvertently matched my outfit to the flamingos!

On the way to the docks, we spied this gorgeous cache of birds right off the side of the main road. Flamingos, Egrets, Herons, and more at no charge!

This bridge painted in flamingo pink leads into town and provides a nice view of the tour boats that will take visitors out to see the birds.

This sign explained what we would see on our tour. Interesting that it is described as both a 1.5-hour tour and a 1-hour tour. To be honest, I can't recall how long our tour lasted, but it was long enough to see plenty of flamingos.

It took us quite a long time to get onto a boat. We came on a Monday, which must be the least busy day for tourists. A set price is charged per boat (around $115 USD), and that is divided among the passengers. So if we went as a party of two, we'd pay a lot more than if we could join some other folks to fill up a boat. For that reason we waited to see if anyone else would show up so we wouldn't have to bear the entire tour cost on our own. As I recall, we arrived in the mid-morning and waited for over an hour.

It was a slow day for flamingo tours! We'd read that these tours are packed on the weekend, and probably busier in the main breeding season of January through March, while we were there in early December. But finally, we were able to hop on with two men who showed up, cutting our cost in half. Here is our boat.

The flamingos were not as plentiful as they would be later in the season when there can be thousands at a time, but we still got to see plenty. They are so pretty and odd-looking! I didn't realize that they are born white but develop their rosy hue from the brine shrimp they feast on.

I played around with some camera settings to get a couple of different looks to my flamingo photos.

They are so interesting and so looooooong in flight!

In addition to Flamingos, we saw other birds, including ospreys, cormorants, and gulls,

The next phase of the tour took us through a mangrove tunnel.

The large, dark blob is a termite nest. We saw many of these in Belize.

Next, our boat zipped down to the Ojo de agua (eye of water, or a spring). This was an interesting and exotic spot, but the mosquitoes were ferocious! Make sure to take insect repellent if you ever take this tour!

We got to see a croc!

And this lovely Egret hunting....

The tour was excellent, and we highly recommend it if you ever have a chance to visit the charming fishing village of Celestún, on Mexico's Gulf coast. You can take a day trip from Merida or spend a night or two, as we did.

Local fishermen near the docks

I'll have one more post covering the remainder of our time inCelestún, so please stop back soon!

Emily & Barry

We're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible.